60%?! Chan has won 14 titles internationally in his senior career. Could you please specifically name which 8 titles of those he shouldn't have won due to CoP fixing? I suppose all those where he had "5 falls", right?

Since you apparently love throwing absurd numbers out there, why not question 90% or 120% of his wins!

I think you should get a minus 2 to 3 GOE (depending on the severity of the fall or if a skater lands a great lutz but misses the double toe in combo) and a minus 3 deduction off of the overall score. That would be fair and square for everybody, and not overly complicated. This would also make it more severe if a skater falls on a non-element. (Getting just a minus 1 for a fall in the middle of a program on some crossovers or something is just not serious enough.) A fall has always been the most noticeable way to screw up in figure skating. It is disruptive to the point that the audience may gasp in disappointment or even horror! Every element is a ship, and that one just went down and took the crew of points with it! It should be treated like a disastrous error, and anyone who does it (especially in the short program) should sink...like that ship.. much lower in the standings than if they skated clean. Period. Maybe I'm just old school, but a fall should be heavily penalized. Carolina Kostner and Agnes Zawadski getting second place in short programs with falls over other enjoyable skaters with clean programs is ABSURD!

As far as results that I do not agree with...just for this season since my list could go on and on:
Chan's 2013 Worlds win
Kostner's 2013 Worlds short program score
Asada's win at NHK
Zawadski's 2013 Nationals short program score

Should that -3 in your suggestion apply at all levels or just Senior? -3 is a HUGE amount of points at the Juvenile level (where the BEST skaters score around 45 points) but not as large at Senior. This is why gkelly and I both have been advocating a % of the TSS per fall - basically if you are risking a lot (ie, putting out a program with really hard content and a lot of transitions) expecting a big reward, if you don't deliver you should have a bigger risk.

Yes. And was another petition, where collected signatures, like for Ten now. They collected more than 6000 signatures in two weeks. And most of them weren't Russians. They were from all over the World, especially from Japan. And many fans wrote directly to the ISU.

But shouldn't a fall have the same severity for everyone? While I agree for lower levels it reduces the severity, but why not just make it 0.5 or 0.25 deductions for falls at lower levels (which is the case for lower competitions, like Adult Nationals in Canada, and whatnot).

Perhaps there should be a bonus for triples or quads that are successfully landed instead? I know there's positive GOE and flutzing and all that too consider, but in gymnastics, you're awarded bonus for movements you end up successfully executing and then receive deductions for major errors... so both are in tandem.

I think CoP does do this in a sense with GOE, but a program done by a junior skater with 7 triples should really score higher than a program done by a senior skater with 4 triples and falls, in the grand scheme of things.

Nope, not true. In gymnastics you get the technical value of a skill you complete, but there is no bonus on top of that if you do it really well. Only deductions if you have form errors. There has been discussion in gymnastics circles that some form of positive grade-of-execution style bonus could be appropriate to distinguish between adequate (non-deductible) and superb performance of a skill. It would seem most judges are afraid not to take deductions in many cases (see Michaela Maroney's team finals vault), anyways, so that might not be viable, but the point stands that there is no bonus in gymnastics.

Nope, not true. In gymnastics you get the technical value of a skill you complete, but there is no bonus on top of that if you do it really well. Only deductions if you have form errors. There has been discussion in gymnastics circles that some form of positive grade-of-execution style bonus could be appropriate to distinguish between adequate (non-deductible) and superb performance of a skill. It would seem most judges are afraid not to take deductions in many cases (see Michaela Maroney's team finals vault), anyways, so that might not be viable, but the point stands that there is no bonus in gymnastics.

I see what you're saying but I should clarify, I meant bonus for movements you end up doing strung together (vault being an exception, of course). But it still has to do with the way you're executing elements. The difference, as far as I understand, is that there's rarely a positive grade of execution tacked onto an element -- i.e. you don't get extra marks for exceptional height on a leaping split ("+GOE" if you will); you do however get deducted if you don't hit the full split.

Should that -3 in your suggestion apply at all levels or just Senior? -3 is a HUGE amount of points at the Juvenile level (where the BEST skaters score around 45 points) but not as large at Senior. This is why gkelly and I both have been advocating a % of the TSS per fall - basically if you are risking a lot (ie, putting out a program with really hard content and a lot of transitions) expecting a big reward, if you don't deliver you should have a bigger risk.

Just the senior level. I'm not sure if I agree with the % of TSS per fall idea. Someone with a riskier program should not lose more points on a fall on a triple toe as opposed to someone with a less difficult program. That fall should be the same amount of points off for everyone, regardless of the technical content planned. That's fair. Think about it, Skater A falls on a triple toe and loses 4 points, while skater B loses 5.5 for the exact same mistake? Nah, I can't agree with that.

But, you can say that BECAUSE of the difficulty of the program, skater B fell on the triple toe and if he/she had backed off somewhere else such as the transitions in and out of the first two jump passes or had put three passes in the first half of the program instead of only 2, he/she would have done the 3T cleanly. My problem with the current system as it stands is that some skaters will get a boost elsewhere to make up that three points (just like they do now for that one point) just because their name is X. A percentage off the TSS basically negates the ability to boost it because if you give them more, they just lose more.

I see what you're saying but I should clarify, I meant bonus for movements you end up doing strung together (vault being an exception, of course). But it still has to do with the way you're executing elements. The difference, as far as I understand, is that there's rarely a positive grade of execution tacked onto an element -- i.e. you don't get extra marks for exceptional height on a leaping split ("+GOE" if you will); you do however get deducted if you don't hit the full split.

To be fair, I've taken a bra strap deduction- in the case of a silver racer back sports bra that was not at all the right pattern to go with the black and red scoop-neck leotard it was worn under. The rule is there to encourage appropriate attire for gymnasts and teams of a certain level. Every gymnast knows that you need to make sure your underwear works with your leotard. In the case of a bra strap that is the same color of, or sufficiently similar to, the leotard and does not stick out very much, most judges simply let it go. Same with underwear. Spray glue is around for a reason, though, and should be used if you're worried about the leo-wedgie effect.

Sorry about the bra strap rant. I've been wanting to get that one out there for years, ever since I saw Stick It, which is a very entertaining movie that has very little basis in fact and hates on judges waaaay too much.

Back to the scoring discussion~

The bonus for the combination of difficult skills goes under the total difficulty score. It's more like the second-half bonus is in skating. It has nothing to do with how well you did the skills, just that you completed them to a recognizeable degree. There's never a positive grade of execution in gymnastics. It's all difficulty value + the execution score. The execution score starts at ten and never goes up, only down. No execution bonus anywhere. There are a few tenths for artistry in there, but again, you start with all three and just get deducted from there if you can't express your floor routine. Bars and vault don't have artistry deductions, though bars does have rhythm deductions. I don't think gymnastics applies well for bonus. What skating might borrow from gymnastics is the degree to which a fall affects the score- the athletes lose what is equivalent to about 7% of the score of a good elite level routine when they lose a full point off a score that is in the 15-16 range. If figure skating were to translate that to the ice, they'd need each fall to cost about 10 points. Clearly a 1 point deduction is vastly insufficient.

There's never a positive grade of execution in gymnastics. It's all difficulty value + the execution score. The execution score starts at ten and never goes up, only down. No execution bonus anywhere.

Interesting. This may be the source of some people who follow both sports believing that in skating under 6.0 the scores started at 6.0 and went down from there. Not the way it really worked, even in elite short programs, but if you were only watching the top skaters and also following gymnastics, it would be easy to get it into your head in those terms.

Theoretically the judging of school figures sort of did work that way -- 6.0 was defined as "perfect and flawless" and in figures it would be possible to judge the results on how closely the tracings approached a perfect circle with perfectly shaped turns, so every score less than 6 could be seen as deductions for lack of perfection.

But since scores in the 5s were very very rare in school figures, the benchmarks even for the best skaters were more 4.0 as good and 5.0 as very good, with adjustments up and down from there.

Interesting. This may be the source of some people who follow both sports believing that in skating under 6.0 the scores started at 6.0 and went down from there. Not the way it really worked, even in elite short programs, but if you were only watching the top skaters and also following gymnastics, it would be easy to get it into your head in those terms.

Actually, scores were based upon median marks under 6.0. The median mark was defined to be the first skaters marks for the program. Each skater was judged relatively to that skater's score (and each subsequent skater). So, if the first skater got 4.0/4.0, each skater beyond that would either be higher or lower than that. As a judge, you'd try to make your median mark for a group such that you didn't paint yourself into a corner and have to tie skaters.

But, you can say that BECAUSE of the difficulty of the program, skater B fell on the triple toe and if he/she had backed off somewhere else such as the transitions in and out of the first two jump passes or had put three passes in the first half of the program instead of only 2, he/she would have done the 3T cleanly. My problem with the current system as it stands is that some skaters will get a boost elsewhere to make up that three points (just like they do now for that one point) just because their name is X. A percentage off the TSS basically negates the ability to boost it because if you give them more, they just lose more.

No, you can't say that. That's just "ifs and buts." Besides, are you saying that skater B should be punished for not backing off somewhere in their transitions or jumping passes since you somehow know that if they had done fewer, the toe loop would have materialized effortlessly? There is no way to know that. Regardless of what they did in the rest of the program, both skaters fell on the toe loop because they made a mistake. I am not trying to be difficult, I swear! I will say that I would like your idea far better than the current system. It would be more effective, and would definitely help negate the "boosting" of popular skaters, but in my personal opinion, I still would find it unfair for one skater to lose more points for the same error. I originally said they should get a negative GOE and 3 points off the overall score. How about 0 points for the element they fell on (if you did a combination and fell on the second portion like 3z/3t(fall), you would get base points and 0 GOE for just a lutz) and then 5 points off the TSS. This would make you lose about 9 points...that would be really hard to boost. I just wish we could actually bounce these ideas off of an ISU official!

Ashley Wagner deserved to be the US Champion. Yes she fell, but Gracie Gold made mistakes in the short, and the short program counts. Just because Gracie Gold skated a clean long it doesn't mean she's the overall winner, and Ashley Wagner skates with a lot more character and maturity than Gracie Gold which really helps.

So it is okay for Ashley to fall in a long and win because of her PC, but when it is Patrick that wins because of PC everyone has a fissy fit?

Different situation, snsd - Gold had a fall and a pop in her SP and was the only one to REALLY hit it out of the park in the LP of the ladies with big scoring potential. D10 was clean in both phases at Worlds and it wasn't like he didn't do 4T.